Chariots of Fire 1981

The Film:

For someone who's not much of a sports fan, I have a weird obsession with the Olympics. I'm also rather obsessed with the social history of Britain between the wars and I love a good drama about the Upper Class in that era (Upstairs Downstairs, or something written by Forster or Waugh). It therefore goes without saying that I love this film. Even if it wasn't particularly good in an objective sense (which it is!), I'd probably still rather like it. 

I remember the film coming out, although I didn't actually see it until a few years later. I mainly remember it at the time for the soundtrack. My Dad was already a big Vangelis fan and he had quite a lot of his LPs, so it was big news in our house that Vangelis was now incredibly famous indeed! The opening shots of the men running across the beach were everywhere (and parodied everywhere) almost as soon as the film was released. 

I also have a strong memory of hearing Colin Welland's victory speech (for Best Screenplay) with the classic line "The British are Coming!" - not just hearing it years later, but seeing it on the news the next day. In fact, this is possibly the first Best Picture winner that I personally got excited about at the time. I've seen it several times now, and I still really love it (as I say, I'm a sucker for this sort of film!)

Andy has a slightly different interest in this one, as the Paris Olympics scenes were filmed at the Bebington Oval, which was just down the road from where he grew up - and he can remember when the filming was taking place. (It's also, coincidentally, very close to where my Dad grew up, so I also have memories of "that's not Paris, that's Birkenhead" from watching the film as a child!)

The Ceremony:

March 29th 1982 - this was another Johnny Carson hosted evening, with a running time of 3 hours and 44 minutes. Carson opened the show with a classic Carson monologue, which starts at about 13 minutes in to this video and is a bit edgy, fairly political but still very funny today!

This clip also gives us a glimpse of the guests arriving, and a great orchestral Overture, conducted by Bill Conti, that includes various Oscar-winning scores from over the years. You'll have to go hunting yourself for the Liberace medley or the Debbie Allen/Gregory Hines big dance number. But the whole thing is a very 80s spectacular.....


Other Notable Winners That Night:

Warren's very happy that they called out the
right winner first time!

The British didn't conquer Hollywood entirely that night. This was one of those relatively rare occasions where Film and Director went to two different films. For the second year in a row, the Directing Oscar went to someone far more famous for their acting. (In both cases, they only won one Oscar, for Directing!) Warren Beatty has much more recently become notorious for the La La Land gaffe (my take on that can wait until we get there). But this time he was accepting, not presenting!

This was also the year that Katharine Hepburn won her fourth Oscar (something still not matched by any other actor or actress) and Henry Fonda won his first, forty one years after his previous nomination for Grapes of Wrath. The average age of the Actor nominees was considerably higher than usual - with the 77-year old John Gielgud joining fellow septuagenarians Kate and Henry by taking Best Supporting Actor for his role in Arthur.

Best Song:

The 80s is definitely the golden age of the Best Song award. Classic after classic awaits.... This one is particularly wonderful! (Although I'm still not sure how one can get caught between the moon and New York City. I've seen the moon whilst *in* New York City - does that count?)

What We Could/Should Have Been Watching:

Gaping plot hole aside, the first Indy is a classic!

I'm very happy to have been watching Chariots of Fire. The other nominees were fairly diverse in both subject matter and tone. We had the aforementioned Reds - which, with twelve nominations overall, was favourite to win. We also had On Golden Pond - which took the two big acting prizes for Fonda and Hepburn. Then there was Louis Malle's Atlantic City, which is unfairly probably best remembered now for Susan Sarandon's interesting use of lemons... (to misquote Seinfeld again, they're real and they're spectacular!). And in the midst of these "serious" films, we get a classic Spielberg blockbuster - Indiana Jones' first big adventure, raiding the lost ark with snakes, booby traps, melting Nazis and plot holes aplenty. I think Indy takes the Silver medal in this race!


Our Verdict:

If there's a scene like this in it, you can pretty much guarantee
that I'm going to like the film!

As I said earlier, I already know that I love this film and I've seen it several times before. The story isn't an obvious one to tell, but it lends itself to some great set pieces, lovely character development, beautiful scenery (including Bebington Oval pretending to be 1920s Paris!) and the subtle but effective exploration of some important themes.

Running...lots of running....and Nigel Havers

The basic premise is a story following the Men's Athletics team at the 1924 Olympics. The majority of the men are typical upper class Oxbridge men of sound pedigree. However, the two that we follow closely don't quite fit this profile. Harold Abrahams (Ben Cross) has all this background, but he also happens to be Jewish. Eric Liddell (Ian Charleson) has none of the pedigree, being the child of Scottish missionaries and a devout Christian himself.

Even more running......and Nigel Havers for the second time!
(a little in-joke for Andy and other Miranda fans there....)

The film follows each of them separately, and then together as they both head to Paris. From previous viewings, it's always been the Eric Liddell story that has stuck with me - from the soul searching scenes set in Scotland through to Liddell's refusal to run on a Sunday. I think this is as much down to Charleson's performance as it is to the strength of Liddell as a character. Charleson completely lights up the screen whenever he is on it and makes the character so sympathetic without softening him at all or making him seem mawkish or too good to be true. (We will see Charleson again next year, but then that's it - he died a few years later of an AIDS-related illness and became the first actor to go public with both the illness and his sexuality. Apparently his Hamlet was amazing, but sadly it was never filmed.)

God bless you Ian Charleson you beautiful man!

This time I focussed a bit more on Abrahams' story and appreciated it much more. It's a far less showy part and the themes of anti-semitism are clear but subtle - which actually makes them far more sinister and effective. From the attitude of the college porter (Richard Griffiths, no less) at the beginning of the film through to the snide distain of the masters (John Gielgud - who was rather busy that year! - and Lindsay Anderson) later on in the story, it confronts a particular type of British attitude very effectively. (Although I'm guessing that much of this was lost on American audiences....).

It's a great film. The period setting and the universal themes mean it hasn't really dated much at all. The soundtrack - which was *everywhere* throughout the eighties - is nowhere near as obtrusive as it could have been and Greek electronica works surprisingly well in this context! I'm obviously pleased, but still quite surprised, that the Academy liked it enough to choose it over its rivals. However, when you look at the list of British-set films that have won Best Picture there's a heck of a lot of Upper Class nostalgia and not a lot of anything else going on (apart from some dodgy-sounding Welsh miners and the technically-Middle Class Minivers - even Oliver turned out to be decidedly posh in the end!). I suppose I could get a bit indignant about that if I really wanted to - but in the end I quite like that sort of film too, so I'm not going to complain....

Ordinary People 1980

The Film:

The 80s comes in with a whimper with this one. It's another "family issues" film and one I've seen before, a while ago. I remember quite liking it, but only in the way that I quite like that sort of thing to pass some time on an afternoon in half term when there's nothing else on the telly.

It's generally best remembered these days as the film that denied Scorsese his rightful award when he was at his peak (it was a long time after this before he actually got anything). The Director award instead went to Robert Redford for this, his directorial debut.

As I said, from what I remember it's quite a good film - but not really my ideal pick just one week after watching Kramer vs Kramer. I'm prepared to be proved wrong - but I fear that this is going to come across as overwrought, very dated and a little bit boring. We'll see....

The Ceremony:

Contrary to what it says on the poster, the ceremony actually took place the day after, on March 31st. This was because of the assassination attempt on then President Ronald Regan (which was motivated by an obsession with future Oscar winner Jodie Foster). It was hosted by Johnny Carson and ran to 3 hours and 13 minutes.

Interesting statistics include the fact that all four acting winners that night were under 40, including Timothy Hutton who, at 20, was the youngest Supporting Actor winner. Eva Le Gallienne was nominated for Supporting Actress and, born in 1899, was the last actor born in the 19th Century to receive a nomination. It's also, at the time of writing, the earliest awards from which all nominated Directors are still alive (although, as three are now in their 80s and the other two in their 70s, I'm guessing this bit won't be true for very much longer!)



Other Notable Winners That Night:

Bobby and Sissy

The other two heavily nominated films that year were Raging Bull and The Elephant Man with eight each. However, The Elephant Man won nothing and Raging Bull took just two, for Best Editing and the Best Actor award for Robert de Niro. The aforementioned Timothy Hutton beat his co-star Judd Hirsch to Best Supporting Actor (to be fair, they were by far the best two in the film!) and Sissy Spacek, best known to most as Carrie, won for Coal Miner's Daughter. Mary Steenburgen took the fourth acting award.

The fact that The Elephant Man went home empty handed prompted several people to argue that make up artist Christopher Tucker (also famous for creating the look of the Phantom in the original stage musical!) should have received something for his work on the film. The following year the award for "Best Make Up" was introduced. Tucker never won the award, although he was credited as "Make Up Consultant" on Quest for Fire, the film that won it two years later

Best Song:

I'm not going to argue with this one - one of my favourites of all time! I got rather obsessed with this song a couple of years later when it topped the charts in the UK, off the back of the TV series (which I was also rather obsessed with!) Oh, and you see that one with the curly hair who's music it is? I'm friends with him on Facebook and we have a dinner date planned for next May....

What We Could/Should Have Been Watching:

Oi, Redford, come and have a go if you think you're hard enough!

It really shouldn't have been Ordinary People. Particularly as an angsty family drama won the year before. The other options were Tess (I studied the book for A Level and was pretty underwhelmed by the film), The Elephant Man (very mainstream for Lynch, but maybe not enough for Oscar), Coal Miner's Daughter (possibly a bit niche?) - and the one that pretty much everyone these days reckons should have won both Best Picture and Best Director - Raging Bull. It's the one that's stood the test of time, in terms of acting, directing and overall story. It's not a personal favourite - I appreciate it rather than like it! - and I'm happy to have just the two boxing films that we've got on our list. However, it really should have won.


Our Verdict:

Classic dinner scene. A staple of many family dramas.
(Come back in 1999 for an almost identical screenshot!)

The plot is fairly thin and pretty straightforward. Older son Buck dies tragically, younger son Conrad (who survived the accident) is guilt-ridden and suicidal. His parents make a complete mess of dealing with the whole thing.

I do need to be careful here. Ordinary People is incredibly underwhelming (you could say, ordinary) but it's really not as bad as I'm in danger of suggesting. When I first watched it a few years back, I quite liked it. However, when you hold it up against other winners (and the other nominees that year) it becomes far less impressive.

Sitcom star in dramatic role - example number one.

All that aside, this is a good film. It's very much about a particular time and place and group of people - it's an upper-middle-class suburban American family in the late seventies. There's a certain coldness about the whole setting, including the characters, that I find equally fascinating and off putting at the same time. On one hand the characters seem authentic in their coldness - trying hard to present the right social image as their (completely inappropriate) way of trying to deal with tragedy. The dinner party scene is superb, expertly showing the plastic pointlessness of the lives they lead in the light of the death of their son - whilst suggesting that it's only really us, the viewers, that can see the futility of the whole thing.

Sitcom star in dramatic role - example number two!

However, on the other hand, the coldness of the characters - particularly Conrad's parents - meant that I never ever warmed to them. I'm guessing that we're not really supposed to warm very much to Beth (Mary Tyler Moore) but I would have liked to have felt some sympathy towards her as a grieving mother. However, I really couldn't care less by the end of the film. Calvin (Donald Sutherland) is a bit more sympathetic, but incredibly bland. So, again, I really didn't feel their pain or sympathise with their situation at all.

Yet again, the kids make more sense than the adults -
even the ones that are struggling with life

Timothy Hutton, playing Conrad, is superb - and fully deserved his Oscar. His character is well written and very well acted and, sadly, still incredibly relevant given the increasing suicide rate among young men today. He's the heart of the film and it's very easy to feel for him and everything he's going through. The scenes with his therapist (Judd Hirsch) are very good, as are the (too few) scenes with the other two women in his life, Jeaninne and Karen (both friendships ultimately doomed, for different reasons). I think maybe the strength of the relationships Conrad has outside his family is there to highlight quite how wrong things are going at home. However, it all just makes me like Beth and Calvin even less.

It's not a bad film - and there are some very good things about it. But it ended up leaving me nearly as cold as Conrad's parents.

Review of the 70s

The 70s - Blockbusters, Masterpieces, Underdogs and the shape of things to come....(if only!)

I think the 40s is still my favourite decade for films in general - but when it comes to Best Picture Winners then the 70s is the ultimate decade. Most of these films are considered to be absolute classics and are watched regularly around the world today (and so are most of the forty other nominees). I really like all of them except Patton - and I'll concede that Patton had some great things going for it (especially George C Scott and the soundtrack).

There's a real shift in film-making this decade - or at least in "critically-acclaimed" film-making - away from high-budget glamour and whimsy and towards gritty realism. We saw a bit of this in the 60s (In The Heat of the Night, Midnight Cowboy) but, with the arguable exceptions of The Sting and Annie Hall (both still a bit gritty and realistic....) the 70s gives us intelligent, thought-provoking and (sometimes) disturbing drama. There are no more musicals (even near-miss Cabaret is a very different sort of musical) and, apart from the De Niro scenes in G2, every film is set within 50 years of the time it was made. All the films are American (both technically and in spirit) and are set, at least partly, in the US (Patton's speech in front of the flag just about qualifies as a US setting). At least half of the films are strongly connected to contemporary New York.

Also, a lot of these films (and many of the other nominees) are shot mainly or partly on location, rather than on big Hollywood lots. There are several examples of scenes that were shot very early in the morning on city streets (possibly without the proper permits), and glimpses of bystanders who were probably quite surprised to find they ended up in an Oscar-winning film. (The French Connection and Rocky are probably the best examples of this....).

I have really enjoyed this decade - if enjoyed is the right word for some of these films. It is with great reluctance that we move on to the 80s, where flashy capitalism and an increased reliance on personal therapy looks set to derail a lot of what the 70s gave us!

My Top Ten (as they stand today!) is as follows:

1. The Godfather
2. One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest
3. The Sting
4. The Godfather Part II
5. The Deer Hunter
6. Rocky
7. Annie Hall
8. The French Connection
9. Kramer vs Kramer
10. Patton

Best Picture

Nominees:   

The Godfather
The Sting
One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest
The Godfather Part II
The Deer Hunter

And the winner is.....

The Godfather

I know it's obvious, but it's that good. Better than the sequel (although the De Niro parts of the sequel match it well). I've seen it half a dozen times now and it gets better every time I watch it. It's long, serious, hard-hitting, violent and grim in parts - but always compelling and (weird but true) very enjoyable. It's right up there on my all time list!



Best Director


Nominees:   

Francis Ford Coppola (The Godfather 1 and 2)
George Roy Hill (The Sting)
Milos Forman (One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest)
Michael Cimino (The Deer Hunter)

And the winner is.....

Francis Ford Coppola

Two Godfathers - no contest!


Best Actor


Nominees:   

Jack Nicholson (One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest)
Robert De Niro (Godfather 2, The Deer Hunter)
John Cazale (Godfather 1 and 2, The Deer Hunter)
Christopher Walken (The Deer Hunter)
Paul Newman (The Sting)
George C Scott (Patton)


And the winner is.....

Jack Nicholson

It's a tough category - hence six nominees (and no Pacino). But Jack gets it because he acts his socks off all the way through Cuckoo's Nest without ever getting in the way of the other great performances. Even though he has often over-acted his way through the last four decades, when he gets it right he gets it very right indeed.


Best Actress

Nominees:   

Diane Keaton (Godfather 1 and 2, Annie Hall)
Talia Shire (Godfather 1 and 2, Rocky)
Meryl Streep (The Deer Hunter, Kramer vs Kramer)
Louise Fletcher (One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest)


And the winner is.....

Louise Fletcher

Actually not as rich a category as I thought it would be, as most of the great female performances of the 70s were in non-winning films. The winners in this decade were not female focussed films. Three women - Keaton, Shire and Streep - had significant roles in more than one winner, and were good in those roles (although I still can't work out what Talia Shire did in G2 that was worthy of a nomination over Diane Keaton!).

However, I'm giving this to Louise Fletcher. Playing against Nicholson in *that* role and holding her own. Her performance is a masterclass in restraint - she acts more in what she doesn't do than what she does.


Best Non-Winning Picture

Nominees: 

Cabaret
Star Wars
M*A*S*H
Dog Day Afternoon
(I could go on - lots of great films in the 70s!)


And the winner is.....

Cabaret

This is probably sentiment as much as anything, but I love this film. I'm not saying it should have won - I don't think there are many examples in this decade of the Academy getting it spectacularly wrong. Clearly The Godfather was the right choice that year, but Cabaret ran it a close second!

Worst Picture

Nominees:    

Patton

And the winner is.....

Patton

There's only one dud in the whole decade. And even in Patton, I rate the acting very highly - just don't really like the film.

Kramer vs. Kramer 1979

The Film:

This is a film I've seen before, quite some time back. In fact, I think I got the DVD for £2 in the Woolworths closing down sale. I remember liking it - I like Hoffman and Streep (far more than Andy does!) and I'm always happy to watch a family drama, particularly if it's also a legal drama.

I don't remember being blown away by it though, and I'm guessing that it's going to suffer a bit from being slightly on the ordinary side - possibly because there were so many similar films (some with Hoffman or Streep in them) throughout the 80s that may have served to render this one far less special to me than to 1979 US audiences.

It's interesting how each film that won in the last year of a decade somehow seems to fit more with the following decade - Broadway Melody was the sound of things to come, Gone With the Wind was a 40s-style tecnicolor blockbuster, All The Kings Men was a very 50s style social drama, and Midnight Cowboy belonged very much in 70s realism. Everything I remember about Kramer vs Kramer puts it in a very similar bracket to so many 80s films, especially ones directed by the likes of Mike Nichols - things like Heartburn, Regarding Henry etc. It will be interesting to see how it holds up to these films!

The Ceremony:

Very little difference from last year - same place, same month (14th April this time), same host - slightly shorter running time. Here's Carson's opening monologue - with a joke about the length of the ceremony that references the Iranian Hostage Crisis......which we'll be coming back to in about 30 films' time.....

Other Notable Winners That Night:

Oscar liking Sally for the first time!

The Kramers pretty much swept the boards, certainly with the big awards. If it wasn't for Meryl (rightly) winning for a supporting role, then it would have won the Big Five. 

It didn't though, and Best Actress went to Sally Field for Norma Rae, the first of her two wins (and not the one with the infamous acceptance speech - that's still to come!)

79 year old Melvyn Douglas won Supporting Actor, for Being There. He was 70 years older than fellow nominee Justin Henry - the biggest age gap up to that point (and not surpassed until 2013)

Among the other winners there was an award for the Visual Effects in Alien - with one of the team being H R Giger. Their award was presented to them by Harold Russell who was still using very similar prosthetics to those he had in the 1940s. I bet Giger could have designed something fabulous for him!

Best Song:

Sorry Oscar, wrong choice again this year - choosing Jennifer Warnes (singing this song from Norma Rae) over the masterpiece that is Kermit the Frog's signature song, The Rainbow Connection. Thankfully (in this category, at least) the 80s are on their way....

What We Could/Should Have Been Watching:

Sheen Snr in 'Nam (Sheen Jnr is coming up in a few films' time!)

The other nominees were Breaking Away (a "coming-of-age-drama" that I know absolutely nothing about), Norma Rae (see Sally Field above!), All That Jazz (weird but wonderful) and the next big Nam film after last year's two classics, Apocalypse Now.

It probably should have been Apocalypse Now. It's a bit of a marmite film, but put up against Dustin and Justin making eggy bread it's definitely got a lot more going for it. I'm guessing the Academy felt they needed a change after the double-Nam domination at the previous years' awards.

(Of course, it was also the year of Alien - but everyone failed to recognise quite what a classic that would become, and the Visual Effects award was its only win out of two nominations.)

Our Verdict:

Father-Son bonding over eggy bread

I'm actually really glad that KvK didn't get the Big Five. It really doesn't deserve to be put on a list with those films that did. There's nothing really wrong with it - and there's a lot that's right with it - but, watching it in 2018, it's really nothing special. As I said above, I think that's partly the fault of the 80s. It sort of suffers from being the first of it's kind. And, for the record, I'd say it was better than Heartburn but not as good as Regarding Henry (which, technically was a 90s film, but only just!)

Single parent determination

So, to the plot - Ted is a workaholic who is married to Joanna and they have a young son, Billy. One day Joanna announces that she's unhappy in the marriage and leaves. This then leads to the first half of the film showing Ted trying to cope with his job and his new responsibilities as a single father. The job gets lost fairly quickly and he has to battle to get a new one and start again far lower down the career ladder. Meanwhile his relationship with Billy takes some time but becomes gradually stronger. This is where some of the best scenes happen - Justin Henry, playing Billy, is very good indeed and plays really well next to notoriously intense method actor Hoffman. The way their changing relationship is shown through successive mealtime scenes is subtle and effective.

Oscar nominated crying

The second half of the film starts when Joanna returns, more than a year later, and starts a custody battle with Ted. This shift quickly heightens the tension, leading to courtroom scenes where, if you didn't know the outcome, it would be difficult to call it.

There's a fair bit of shouting, rather a lot of crying - but ultimately none of it is unrealistic given the characters and the situations they find themselves in. Meryl Streep apparently pushed for changes to Joanna's character to make her more sympathetic. She lost, but I think she was probably right. I know that we are supposed to be championing the cause of the single father, but I think we end up doing it too much at the expense of sympathy for why Joanna felt she had to leave. This would have been handled very differently even only a couple of years later and would have made for a more even handed story.

Oscar winning crying

As both of us watching have a legal background, we were particularly harsh critics of the court scenes - having to stop and remember that this was the US legal system 40 years ago. Actually, when you look at it in this context, the film was quite radical in showing the changing parenting roles and different family setups. Also, ten years later the UK still enshrined in law the idea that, in a custody battle, a child would be better in the care of their mother unless there are very clear reasons to show otherwise. We know what Ted and Billy have been through, a situation that Joanna deliberately caused when she left the home - but the legal odds are very strongly stacked against Ted.

Overall, the story of the Kramers doesn't do very much for us in 2018. As a film it showcases some very good acting (particularly young Justin Henry) but, whilst the general story is a fairly timeless family drama, the historical social context of it makes it really dated. Something that isn't true of Apocalypse Now or Alien.

The Deer Hunter 1978

The Film:

This is one that I've never seen. I generally don't choose to watch war films - which this challenge has shown (with the exception of Patton) to be a bit of a mistake. I've seen a few Vietnam-based films but they tend to be films about the people left behind (ie. hippie films with cool soundtracks) or things like Forrest Gump. This one has always been filed in my head in the same place as Apocalypse Now (one of the first, very serious etc) with a "must watch later" label on it. Well now is my chance....

My only other frames of reference for this film are quite possibly going to slightly spoil one or two scenes with unfortunately inappropriate associations.

Firstly, those of us of a certain age who were brought up in the UK with the help of the BBC will always associate the theme music - "Cavatina" - with Tony Hart's gallery and someone signing their apologies that no pictures can be returned.....

Secondly, there was an advert for chocolate Revels many years back that was based around the Russian roulette scene - playing on the idea that you never know which flavour you're going to get. I'm guessing the film would have a very different outcome if they were playing with Revels, not bullets!

The Ceremony:

April 9th at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. Hosted by Johnny Carson and running to 3 hours 25 minutes.

It included a segment, sung by Sammy Davies Jnr and Steve Lawrence called "Oscar's Only Human", which highlighted lots of great songs over the years which didn't even get a nomination for Best Song. There was some controversy about the song, but the segment was kept in when Jack Haley Jr threatened to quit as Producer and take Johnny Carson with him!

The ceremony was the last public appearance for John Wayne, who presented the Best Picture award. He died two months after. It was also the last appearance for Jack Haley Sr who presented the Best Costume award. He died later that year.


Other Notable Winners That Night:

Jon and Jane

The Deer Hunter took the big two, and a supporting Oscar for Christopher Walken - but the main two acting awards went to Jon Voight and Jane Fonda for rival film Coming Home. Maggie Smith took the other acting award for California Suite.

Only the two 'Nam films and Midnight Express got more than one award, with everything else shared out between a wide range of different styles of film.

Among the Honorary Awards was one for Laurence Olivier and a special award for the visual effects in Superman. (It can't be long now before the "technical" awards categories start multiplying to accommodate new technologies....)


Best Song:

We're deep into Disco at this point - so here's Donna Summer with "Last Dance" from Thank God It's Friday. 

It beat Hopelessly Devoted To You from Grease (nope, I don't know why that one got nominated either!) and, more to the point, my favourite Barry Manilow song (I'm not a big fan, so there's not much choice) from a film I loved when I was much younger, Foul Play. I love this song - here it is in all its glory with the fab opening titles!

What We Could/Should Have Been Watching:

Hanoi Jane and Jon Voight (who still has his legs, btw!)

The other nominees included Heaven Can Wait, Midnight Express and An Unmarried Woman (which I'd never heard of, but apparently was quite a big film at the time - a comedy drama about a strong, liberated woman that doesn't appear to have stood the test of time).

However, it was always going to be a two horse race between the two 'Nam films. It was inevitable that The Deer Hunter and Coming Home were going to be compared. The comparison even crept into Friends - "John Savage was Deer Hunter - no legs. Jon Voight was Coming Home, couldn't feel his legs" (Not for the first time, Ross was wrong and Richard was right!). I've not seen Coming Home - but it was the one that was favoured by those of a similar political persuasion to me. Supporters of Coming Home (and particularly Jane Fonda herself) were very critical of what they perceived as a right-wing glorification of the US - if not of the war itself - in The Deer Hunter. Read on to find out whether I agree with that or not. As to which is the better of the two films, I'll let you know what I think when I've seen Coming Home - but don't hold your breath. With Platoon on it's way soon, I've no great desire to add another 'Nam film to my watchlist at the moment!

Our Verdict:

The second film this decade to start with a
very long wedding scene....

It's been a few weeks now since we watched The Deer Hunter and I'm glad I've given it a some time before writing this - as it's taken several weeks to stop thinking about it. We got as far as Amadeus before anything touched it (not even Ghandi). Part of me doesn't really want to put myself through watching such a harrowing film again for quite some time - yet part of me wants to go right back to it and see what else I can get from it.

The basic plot is just as much human interest / family drama as it is war film - which I wasn't expecting and was very pleased about. It starts with a wedding (a good way to introduce a community, as Coppola will tell you!) and then follows the fates of three friends from a steel town who sign up for Vietnam, along with those they leave behind.

Here comes Meryl Streep - don't worry, she'll be back!

The film is very clearly in three acts - before, during and after. The "before" section is social drama (and includes the titular deer hunt). It looks at how the war is affecting their families, their relationships, their jobs etc, including how it affects those who are left behind - particularly the women, and non-soldier Stan (John Cazale in his last role, literally weeks before he died of cancer).

The "during" section is violent and harrowing. The centrepiece here is the famous Russian roulette scene, which is very well filmed and incredibly tense. The actors all look very shaken (including the extras) - apparently some of their reactions weren't acting. (And, no, I didn't think about Revels even once!)

The big metaphor....

The "after" involves De Niro's character, Mike, returning home and trying to pick up his life as best he can. This includes a developing relationship with Linda (Streep) and, more centrally, trying to track down his two friends, who he lost contact with following the Russian roulette. He finds Steven (Savage) in a veteran's hospital and, through him tracks down Nick (Walken) to somewhere far more worrying.....

He got the coffee flavoured Revel.
It was all downhill from there.

"Like" is probably not the right word for a film like this, but it was really, really good - I rate it far more highly than I thought I would. The acting is superb - particularly De Niro and Walken. The cinematography is beautiful, especially during the deer hunt scenes. Above all, I liked the fact this wasn't really a war film after all. It was a film about the effects of war on a community of people and some of the individuals in it. That's what drew me in.

Being of the wrong generation and nationality, I can't really make fair comment on whether Jane
was right about The Deer Hunter being right-wing propaganda. Apart from a cloyingly patriotic moment at the end, it didn't feel like it to me. It definitely wasn't pro-war and I don't even think it was particularly pro-America. It was ultimately just very sad and very moving.

Annie Hall 1977

The Film:
  Apparently elephants are not kosher (they do have cloven hooves, but they don't chew the cud!). However there is a great big one in the room when we discuss this film (just like there will be a few more times still to come) - this time in the shape of Woody Allen. I like Woody Allen's work and I'm not going to suddenly not like it because he has at the very least an unsavoury sex-life and has possibly done things that are far more sinister. If I was in the business I probably wouldn't work with him - but, the fact remains, I like a lot of his films. Including this one.

The Academy also liked this one rather a lot - it liked it a lot better than Star Wars. And I'm inclined to agree.....

It's a while since I've seen it so I'm looking forward to seeing it again. It's also one of the original templates for so many New York romcoms, sitcoms and dramas that I spend far too much of my time watching (and re-watching) so I'm expecting to be spotting things left right and centre!

The Ceremony:

It's Oscar's 50th birthday - and a very glitzy affair it was too! April 3rd 1978 at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, with a running time of three and a half hours and ratings of just short of 40 million. Most notably, this was the nineteenth and last time that Bob Hope hosted the ceremony - very much the end of an era!

The ceremony was also notable for two main controversies. Firstly, Vanessa Redgrave used her acceptance speech to speak out against ultra-Zionists and Paddy Chayefsky then used his turn at the mic to have a go back. The saddest thing about this is that the same arguments are still going on today.....

Secondly, the live performance of the Best Song was accompanied by (supposedly) deaf children from a local school signing the lyrics. When several members of the public complained that the signing was nonsense rather than actual ASL, the organisers came clean and admitted that the children weren't deaf and they had been taught the signing very quickly for the performance.

Other Notable Winners That Night:

Star Wars won the most awards (six), but they were mainly technical awards (plus one for John Williams' score). Seven of the big eight awards went to either Annie Hall or Julia (which won the other screenplay and both Supporting awards). The other one went to Richard Dreyfuss for Best Actor in The Goodbye Girl - the youngest actor, at the time, to win it - although more people saw him that year in Close Encounters OTTK (which won one award for cinematography).

Jason Robards won Best Supporting Actor for the second year in a row, a feat only managed by a small number of actors.

Surprisingly (to me, at least) the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award was given to Charlton Heston. My first thought was that Hollywood doesn't really have a track record of recognising right-wing gun-toting conservatives as humanitarians - but then I worked out that Heston was probably still (just about) a left-wing liberal civil rights activist at this point.....

 Best Song:

Seriously? This beat the best Bond Theme ever??? Oh dear!

What We Could/Should Have Been Watching:

The force was not quite strong enough in this one.....

The choice was between Neil Simon's The Goodbye Girl (possibly splitting the Jewish New York comedy vote?), ballet drama The Turning Point (another contemporary NYC-set drama) and holocaust drama Julia. Oh, and Star Wars. It's no real surprise that Star Wars didn't win. Firstly, at the time it was just the one film, not the three, or six, or eight, or ten, or more - depending on what constitutes a true Star Wars film - that we have now. We didn't even know who Luke's father was at this point in time. Secondly, it was a big, effects-laden, sci-fi fantasy film. With very few exceptions (all in the 21st Century) the Academy has only rewarded realism for Best Picture. In fact, it's daring enough that there are a couple of sequences in Annie Hall that mess with reality, even only slightly. With hindsight, Star Wars was probably, objectively, the best film that year. It probably should have won, but rather than bemoaning the injustice of it all, we should be really impressed that it even got nominated!

Our Verdict:

As with Rocky, there's been a bit of a gap between watching Annie Hall and writing up this review. In this case, that's probably not a good thing. I've seen Annie Hall at least four or five times now. It's always an enjoyable experience but the finer details of the plot never really stick in my brain for long after watching it. As I said above, I really like Woody Allen films, including his more recent ones (although the recurring older man / younger woman storylines are a tad problematic). I'm not sure Annie Hall necessarily reflects his best writing, or his best directing, or his best acting - but it is where all three work together at their best. The film captures a particular time, place and community really well and it does so with great heart, great humour and a light enough touch that it can get away with several ideas and set pieces that really shouldn't have worked. 

Just a little comedy about two people

Some "firsts" in this film have become so well used
that you hardly notice them....

One of the first of many conversations about nothing in one
of many queues in many romcoms/sitcoms set in New York

The story is very slight. Alvy is a forty year old neurotic Jewish writer (funnily enough!) who meets similarly insecure midwestern WASP Annie. Their relationship plays out through the course of the film in a variety of set-piece scenes that allow them both (but mainly Alvy) to explore their insecurities in witty (and sometimes hilarious) dialogue. It is funny, it's well written and above all it has heart (something lacking in some of Allen's later films). I like Alvy and Annie and I want them to be ok - and that makes all the difference.

Anyone seen a Mantra lying around anywhere?

I am a big fan of New York and of New York sitcoms - particularly Seinfeld. On our only visit to New York - so far - we spent an afternoon with the real Kramer, buying soup from the Soup Nazi and having a big salad in Tom's (aka Monks) Diner. It's extremely unlikely that there would have been Seinfeld (as we know it) without Annie Hall. The scene where they are queuing and Alvy has a whole rant about queues is a classic example of a whole scene that is basically "about nothing", as Seinfeld was. (And, of course, Larry David has since played the Allen-esque character in a Woody Allen film - a perfect match). Annie Hall is also one of the first modern Romcoms - and, imho, is probably only matched by When Harry Met Sally. Although there are now several thousand to choose from! It's also only the second winner to break the fourth wall (the less said about the first one the better, although it was one of the only fairly good things about Tom Jones) and it's done so well. Add into that one short line from an unknown Jeff Goldblum and a blink-and-you'll-miss-it distance shot of pre-fame Sigourney Weaver and Annie Hall manages to pave the way for a lot of 80s and 90s New York comedies whilst remaining quintessentially 70s. It almost certainly wasn't the best film of 1977, but I'm very glad that it won!

Rocky 1976

The Film:

Rocky is an unusual winner, in that it's the only one that was the first in a long (and still growing) franchise of populist box-office-friendly films. We have sequels that have won (Godfather 2, Return of the King), winners that have spawned sequels (Mrs Miniver, Going My Way, In The Heat of the Night, The French Connection, The Godfather - have I missed any?) along with a fair few that were remakes, remade, spawned TV series etc. There were also several Broadway Melody films, but I'm not counting those, as the only link between them was a lack of imagination in naming 1930s musicals! (btw the last one - 1940 - is the best one, because of the Astaire/Powell partnership, with 1938 a close second, because of Judy Garland!).

At the time of writing there have been seven Rocky films, with the eighth in post-production and due out for Christmas. Stallone has written (or co-written) and starred in all of them, and directed half of them. I have to admit that I gave up after number 4 (which was as much a rock soundtrack as it was a film!) and I've been told that Creed is really good so I should probably watch it (not least because some of it was filmed at Goodison - apparently Sly is a big Everton fan!).

I'm not a big fan of boxing - at all! - but I remember really liking Rocky. It's a while since I've seen it so I'm looking forward to seeing it again. Andy's not seen it and is not a fan of the sequels he has seen, but I think he'll be pleasantly surprised....

The Ceremony:

Monday March 28th 1977 at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. The broadcast rights moved back to ABC this year, and the ceremony was up against a big basketball game (something that would never happen today with all the concerns about ratings!)

The ceremony ran for 3 hours 38 minutes and was presented, yet again, by several hosts - the interesting quartet of Richard Pryor, Ellen Burstyn, Jane Fonda and Warren Beatty.

The Best Supporting Actress Award was presented by Muhammed Ali, alongside Sylvester Stallone. It's a nice touch that Ali was there the night that Rocky won - although it wouldn't have worked quite as well if one of the others won. (Had someone being doing some selective leaking at Price Waterhouse??)

Other Notable Winners That Night:

Faye and Oscar

The big acting prizes went to the big "serious" films that were nominated this year - three to Network and one to All The President's Men. It was also the first year that an Acting award was given posthumously - to Peter Finch, who had died of a heart attack earlier in the year. Beatrice Straight won her Supporting Actress award for the shortest performance ever to win - just over five minutes (a good few minutes shorter than Judi Dench's win!) These two films also took a Screenplay award each (and they both received more awards than Rocky).

The other notable nominee this year didn't actually win, but is definitely worth remembering. Lina Wertmuller was nominated as Best Director for the Italian film Seven Beauties, becoming the first (of only five to date) female director to be nominated. This came as a big surprise to me as I always thought it was Jane Campion first - with Sofia Coppola, Kathryn Bigelow and Greta Gerwig following. How is her name not mentioned more?

Best Song:

Three versions of "A Star Is Born" and only two Oscars between them (I'm not holding out much hope that Lady Gaga will change that, but I'd be delighted to be proved wrong!). Here's Barbra, soft as an easy chair, getting all soppy with hairy Kris:

What We Could/Should Have Been Watching:

I'm going to defend Rocky to the hilt here, for sentiment and appropriate cheering for the underdog as
much as anything else. I have far less problem than most film buffs with it winning Best Picture. The complaining from others tends to lead people to think Rocky is as unimportant as its many sequels - but its more down to the heavyweight (no pun intended) classics that it knocked out (that one was intended!).

Are we talking to him???

Rocky was up against "All The Presidents Men", "Network" and "Taxi Driver" (along with lesser-remembered Woody Guthrie biopic "Bound For Glory"). Any of those first three could have taken the prize and all are still critically acclaimed today. I can't argue with how good each of them are - but surely a lot of that depends on what you mean by a "good" film. Rocky is also a really good film and people really enjoyed watching it. So there.

If I was to go another way, it would depend entirely on what mood I'm in. "Network" and "All The Presidents Men" were the bigger winners on the night, but I'm still thinking of De Niro from a couple of years back, so let's have Taxi Driver (which shockingly didn't get Marty S a nomination for Best Director!)

Our Verdict:

Obligatory sports-film trainer/trainee shot

It's been a while between us watching this film and me finally writing up this review - I'll blame exam marking, holidays and general inertia! (At the time of writing, we've already watched 1983 - I have quite a backlog!)

For my second time of watching this film I wasn't even slightly disappointed. In really appreciating Rocky, it's important to try and forget the forty-something years that have passed since, the increasing list of really dreadful films that Sly has been a fairly dreadful part of and the gradual melting of his face. He made his masterpiece relatively early in his career!

Filling each other's gaps

One of the best things about Rocky is the fact that it isn't really a Sport Film at all - certainly not in the way that Chariots of Fire is, and not even as much as Million Dollar Baby is. The boxing is the backdrop, not the driving force. Ultimately, Rocky is part drama, part romance. With its gritty, city, working class setting it has some things in common with Midnight Cowboy, French Connection, even The Godfather - although here we're in Philly rather than NYC. Rocky is down on his luck, flawed but ultimately decent and just trying to get through a disappointing life.

Poor cow....

Two key things give him the chance to make things better. One is the big story of the film - although he's pretty much all washed up as a boxer he gets a freak chance to fight the champion. No one thinks he stands a chance, but he gives it his all with one goal - not to win, but just to go the distance. This leads to the iconic scenes in the film - using the hanging carcasses at the meat packing depot where his friend Paulie works as punch bags, and running up the steps as dawn breaks over Philadelphia (as imitated by pretty much everyone who's visited Philly since). These scenes are great. The montages are well shot and edited and the music is superb.

Go the distance!

The other, more subtle but equally important, change in Rocky's life during the story is his developing romance with Paulie's sister, Adrian (Talia Shire being given a lot more to do than in either Godfather film!). She works in a pet store, she's timid and shy - and the gradual development of her relationship with Rocky is beautifully and realistically portrayed. They are both shown to be flawed but basically good and decent people who deserve love, deserve a chance and, ultimately deserve each other - as Rocky says, they both have gaps, together they fill gaps.

Seven films on it's probably not too much of a spoiler to reveal that Rocky does, indeed, go the distance. But one of the best things about the film is that he doesn't win (yet - the sequels exist to spoil that!). The film isn't about winning - it's about trying. Ultimately that's what makes it such a good film.